Shelia P. Moses writes an endearing novel about the custom of paying final respects to a loved one.

“The Sittin’ Up” is an utterly charming story about the tradition of paying final respects to the recently deceased. In this case, that’s Mr. Bro. Wiley, who is referenced by his full title throughout the novel, illustrating the reverence in which his community held him.

Mr. Bro Wiley, a former slave, was “like a daddy” to Bean, a boy taking his first steps toward what he calls “grown-folk mess,” or what some of us call “adulthood.” It is Bean’s first encounter with death, and it is by turns upsetting, fascinating, painful and challenging.

Memories of Mr. Bro. Wiley punctuate nearly every page:
“Mr. Bro. Wiley appreciated anything you did for him and I knew the flowers made him smile from heaven.”
“That black hearse was so much longer than it looked sitting at the funeral home. It seemed bigger than when they carried Mr. Bro. Wiley away.”
“Ma was holding me so tight that I could feel the life growing inside her move again, but Mr. Bro. Wiley’s life was over. I touched his hand. Those old hands were hard and stone-cold.”
“I had to remember what Mr. Bro. Wiley told me and Pole: ‘Don’t worry about what the folk call you. Just worry about what you answer to.'”
“It was a fine day. Everything was going to be all right. Mr. Bro. Wiley was gone, but Papa and the menfolk would protect us just like they did in the storm.”

The novelty of Mr. Bro. Wiley’s burial preparations and the wakin’ up itself, the local version of an Irish wake or the Jews sitting shiva (though that’s after burial), is interrupted by a powerful storm. It promises to wash Mr. Bro. Wiley back to the river he loved, and serves as a level between the African-American community of Low Meadows and the whites who live in the town above the lowlands.

There is some change by the story’s end, the small, reluctant steps that lead to bigger change. “The Low Meadows were underwater a whole week. We had no choice but to live among the white folk. We ate at the same tables and slept in their beds,” Pole recounts. It’s an uneasy time for both communities, but by the time the Ole River’s waters recede, the “Whites Only” sign on Taylor’s Grocery Store has been taken down. Mr. Bro. Wiley would have been satisfied to see that.

“The Sittin’ Up” should be included in any 20th century history class as an excellent example of race relations and mourning traditions, and it might help children coming to grips with the death of a loved one, as well.

The latest young adult novel from Christopher Paul Curtis follows the story of “Elijah of Buxton.”

“The Madman of Piney Woods,” set in 1901, tells about an unlikely friendship forms between two 13-year-olds: Benji, a young African American, and Red, an Irish-American boy whose grandmother is a genuine terror.

They don’t meet until nearly two-thirds of the way through the story, drawn together by their fascination with the legendary creature said to live in a forest near Buxton, Canada, a refuge for runaway slaves. (This is set in 1901, remember, when the Civil War was still fresh in people’s memories.)

Bound by an elaborate prank they play as well as their mutual interest in the forest-dweller. Red knows him as the South Woods Lion Man; in Benji’s community, he’s called the Madman of Piney Woods.

No, really. A prescient student and soccer player, he’s just been diagnosed as terminally ill, thanks to a malignant brain tumor that doctors say will kill him in less than a year. So much for college interviews, and sowing wild seeds at a house party with a hot girl from school.

He barely has time to start pitying himself when a man in a tan jumpsuit visits his hospital bed with a proposal. Since Cam’s fatally ill anyway, but so far free of symptoms, how about joining a James-Bond-ish organization that promises fast cars, exotic locations and jumping from planes on a mission that can “help save your fellow man.”

Beats being in a hospital bed, Cam reckons. The stranger arranges to invent a cover story (Cam dies, but his parents inherit $250,000), and sneaks Cam from the hospital room, “Mission Impossible” style, through the window and up to a waiting helicopter. (That’s the point where this novel lands squarely in the middle of Ian Fleming territory, minus Pussy Galore and friends.)

Eliot Schrefer’s “Threatened” is a sequel of sorts to his excellent novel “Endangered,” in which an African coup threatens a sanctuary for bonobos, along with its caretakers.

This time, we follow Luc, an orphaned Gabon street boy, who is naturally suspicious of the creatures he calls “mock men,” what an Arab researcher calls chimpanzees. The Arab travels with a vervet, a monkey Luc usually sees gutted and hung up for sale in the bushmeat market.

This man tells Luc to call him Prof, for “professor,” and hires him to help lug his equipment to the optimistically-named Beverly Hills hotel in Franceville. When Luc steals Prof’s briefcase, the man comes after him. But instead of punishing Luc, Prof buys his freedom from Monsieur Tatagani. He wants Luc to help him with his research in the bush, but even with the promise of escaping his vicious master Tatagani, Luc’s not sure:

“In Gabon, we called the places men live the Outside and the jungle the Inside. Humans weren’t supposed to go Inside,” Luc says. But he won’t abandon Prof, who’s paid Luc’s debt, bought him shoes and who seems to have more money than Luc thought existed.

Patricia Polacco’s “Gifts of the Heart” celebrates the nucleus that makes a family.

“Gifts of the Heart” tells of the final Christmas on the farm for Trisha and Richie, their mother and grandfather. They hate to leave it, but with their grandmother dead, the place is too full of memories for Grampa. And the family is a little strapped for cash. Selling the farm will help them.

Trisha and Richie are feeling sad when a newcomer shows up on the farmhouse threshold. It’s Kay Lamity, their new housekeeper. (But they didn’t have an old housekeeper! Anyway.)

She is full of wonderfully quirky phrases and has a winning way in the kitchen. After some hesitation, the kids embrace her, and confide that their favorite part of Christmas is the presents. Richie is thinking about a train model he saw in a downtown store window. Trisha is thinking about a sweet doll.

“All them toys ya see in them shop windas are one kind of gift…Maybe they ain’t the ones that count,” Kay Lamity tells them. She elaborates:
“Gifts that come straight from the heart, that’s the kind that’s kept forever!”
“What do you mean…from the heart?” Richie asks.
“A gift of the heart ain’t opened by pullin’ on a fancy bow or rippin’ pretty paper off a box. It’s about openin’ your heart…and givin’ what’s inside. That’s the greatest gift of all!”

Joyce Meskis, owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, was honored May 8 by the Colorado Authors’ League. (Photo from The Denver Post archives)

The Colorado Authors’ League named its 2014 honorees on May 8, with awards going out in categories ranging from poetry to fiction to childrens books, magazine journalism to blogging.

Among those recognized were two women with decades in the literary world between them.

Joyce Meskis, owner of the Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, was honored with the CAL Author Advocate Award. Among other things, she was cited for her support of local authors and championing First Amendment rights.

Lois Hayna, a 101-year-old Colorado Springs poet who didn’t devote herself fully to writing until she was in her 60s, won the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Meskis and Hayna were the inaugural winners of their awards. They were honored in an evening dinner at the Marriott Courtyard in Cherry Creek. Award-winning novelist Robert Greer of the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology, was the keynote speaker.

Nobody at school seems to see Brian, so he occupies himself with cartoons. When classmates shun a new boy, Brian creates a drawing for him that helps get Brian into the picture as well.

Trudy Ludwig’s “The Invisible Boy” is a story whose dilemma nearly everyone will recognize. Anyone who’s stood off to the side at a party, or silently watched conversations bubble at a table, or been overlooked when teams were chosen knows what it’s like to feel invisible.

In her story, young Brian, a quiet boy who literally is black and white in a colorful world (nice touch by illustrator Patrice Barton), looks on while classmates call attention to themselves. When kids divvy up for recess kickball, Brian stands on the sidelines, “waiting and hoping,” but remains unchosen.

At lunch, the other kids compare notes on the birthday party that everyone (except for Brian) enjoyed over the weekend. Because he wasn’t invited. To console himself, he calls on his imagination to fill empty pages with bright drawings of monsters, flying saucers, pirates and superheroes.

Then a new boy comes to class. The other kids size him up, but laugh at him when he pulls out a bowl of bulgogi for lunch.

Siblings Sidney and Stella do everything together — feed the ducks, play games, read, share a room (that’s sternly divided with a dotted white line) — with one exception. They don’t share.

Imagine! Two small children who don’t share! Well, suspend disbelief. So Stella and Simon are arguing over a ball — a very bouncy ball that is also so hard that it’s capable of shattering the moon (but not, for some reason, whatever it touches in their house). And as they argue, they grapple with the ball until it slips loose and bounces all the way to the (apparently fragile) moon, and the “moon broke into a million pieces.”

“The Highest Number in the World” explains why 9 is a revered number in the world of hockey.

“The Highest Number in the World” — and no, that isn’t a reference to Colorado’s newly-legalized recreational marijuana — is actually a picture book about a superstitious hockey player.

Young Gabe (short for Gabriella) utterly devotes her life to hockey. She’s invented a cool move that her teammates call “The Gabe,” and she’s proud of her lucky jersey with “22” on the back, a duplicate of the red and white Team Canada jersey worn by Olympian Hayley Wickenheiser. She’s counting on wearing number 22 when she makes the team, but then she learns that 20 is the team’s highest number.

Gabe’s heart breaks when she’s handed a jersey with 9 on the back. She detests her assigned number, and threatens to quit the team.

“The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond” starts with Violet on her last day of elementary school, fretting about the unpromising summer looming in front of her. Her best friend is going to Greece. Her big sister, Daisy, is wrapped up in her boyfriend.

But Violet’s mom promised that she could have a kitten, so maybe life won’t be completely dull in Moon Lake, the vanilla bedroom community where she lives in Washington state.

Moon Lake is vanilla in more ways than one. Violet is the one of the only people of color in her community. Her father was African-American, so she is “brown haired, brown eyed, brown skinned, biracial.” She “sometimes feels like a single fallen brown leaf atop a blanket of fresh snow. Alone.” She doesn’t like the question in people’s eyes when they see her with her white mother, grandparents and sister.